Wild Ginger - Anchee Min [0]
Anchee Min
A MARINER BOOK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
Boston • New York
First Mariner Books edition 2004
Copyright © 2002 by Anchee Min
All rights reserved
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selections from this book, write to Permissions,
Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South,
New York, New York 10003.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Min, Anchee, date.
Wild ginger / Anchee Min.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-618-06886-4
ISBN 0-618-38043-4 (pbk.)
l.Young women—Fiction. 2. Communism—
Fiction. 3. China—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3563.14614 W35 2002
8l3'.54—dc21 2001051611
Book design by Melissa Lotfy
Typefaces: Minion, ExPonto
Printed in the United States of America
QUM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
During a certain period of our lives, we possess youth.
The rest we spend living in the memories of it.
—from the diary of a former Red Guard
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
A PREVIEW OF ANCHEE MIN'S NEW NOVEL
1
In my memory she has a pair of foreign-colored eyes, the pupils yellow with a hint of green. They reminded me of a wildcat. She stood by the classroom door, her face in shadow. Behind her the sun looked like a giant red lantern. As the sun rose, suddenly the light spilled out. The beam hit the windows, bounced, and was reflected in her eyes. It was there, in her eyes, that I saw water in motion, the bottom of a pond clearly illuminated by the light. The water weeds swayed gracefully like ancient long-sleeve dancers.
I remember my thought: she's not Chinese. Then I thought no, it's impossible. It must be the sunlight playing tricks on me. She was just like me, a girl with thick short braids at the side of her ears. She was in a blue Mao jacket. Her right hand held an abacus. She wore an old pair of army shoes with her big toes on their way out. No Red Guard armband on her left arm. I remember my fear from that instant. It was what connected us—a sign of political uncertainty. I thought of Hot Pepper, the bully girl, the head of the Red Guard. She would definitely suspect that the newcomer was a reactionary.
I remember I began to feel sorry for the newcomer. The same way I felt for myself. I was rejected for membership in the Red Guard because I was not from a three-generation-of-labor family. My parents and grandparents were teachers. It didn't matter that we were just as poor. We lived in a converted garage in Shanghai. Eight people in one room.
Hot Pepper believed in violence. Hitting was part of her treatment. She said that she had to "pump" the "dirty bourgeois blood" out of me. The authorities and society encouraged her. People of my category were considered to have "reactionary dust" in our thoughts. It was Mao's teaching that "the dust won't go away unless there is a broom." Hot Pepper called herself a "revolutionary broom."
Hot Pepper had a pair of mice eyes and an otterlike body. No neck. Her bangs were so long that her eyes looked as if they were behind bars. She wore a Red Guard armband and an extra-large green military uniform. She was very proud of her uniform because it had four pockets. Pockets were an indication of rank—the more pockets, the higher the rank. The uniform was from her uncle, who had served in the People's Liberation Army. Hot Pepper also wore two palm-size ceramic Mao buttons, which were pinned on each side of her chest. The buttons were peach-colored morning sky with a tiny Mao head in the middle. From a distance they looked like two breasts with Mao heads as nipples.
Every morning Hot Pepper led a team to block the school gate. They were there to examine everyone's loyalty toward Chairman Mao. The school's requirement was that everyone bring the "three-piece treasure": a Mao button, a Little Red Book (Mao quotations), and, if you were a Red Guard, an armband. If you forgot, Hot Pepper lined you up and held you until the bell rang. Sometimes Hot Pepper picked